Goodbye Brains, it was shit while it lasted.

Pubs change all the time. And by pubs, I mean the people that make them. Staff and customers leave with very little notice and usually very little fanfare, but more often than not there’s someone else around the corner ready to take their spot at the bar, whichever side it may be. As a result, most pubs are in a state of perpetual change, maybe not always for the better but they always seem to find their equilibrium. 

Of late, our very own dingy watering hole has had some pretty seismic shifts (if you don’t know about them by now, then you don’t really deserve to) but we had found some semblance of normality. Well... Normality might not be the word but it'll have to do.

Then it happened. Brains landed. 

Now far be it from me to critique another mans method of management, after all I’ve never done the job, and he’s allegedly got a CV longer and more impressive than Ron Jeremy. But the man was an arse… A total arse. At every turn, he seemed to be intent on alienating each and every person that had kept The Taps going during its recent turbulent times. 

Within a week of starting he’d reduced one staff member to tears… During a shift… Behind the bar. Within two, he’d managed to intimidate regulars out of the pub for having the temerity to crack wise about procuring their own lime for drinks. Within a month, he’d forced Taps Richard into the King’s Head. I MEAN TAPS RICHARD. IN THE KING’S HEAD. THE HUMANITY! 

By the time his short and not particularly sweet stay was almost at an end - he was 4 members of staff down, as well as being the reason for a full scale not a boycott of regulars. I must admit, I do have a grudging admiration for a man so pig headed that he could piss off so many people in such a short space of time. 

His fuck-ups already have the air of myth about them. How about getting so wrecked on your first weekend that you forget to lock up the pub in favour of dragging some woman upstairs? Try going away for the weekend and telling the person looking after the pub not to worry about the tills because someone else is doing them - when no one else is doing them. Why pay for straws when you can steal a handful from McDonald's? I could go on. 

And I will. The man is a bully. He seemingly felt completely comfortable embarrassing and belittling the people who were working for him, most of whom are about fifteen years his junior. When someone did stand up to him he’d either back down instantly if he was scared of them or turn his obnoxiousness up to 11 if he wasn’t. But didn't once apologise for his behaviour. 

I’m aware that his job was always going to be a difficult one. The Taps is a pretty close knit pub where you have to earn the respect of people. He could have come in and been spectacular and you still would’ve had people saying ‘I don’t like him.’ But his approach of giving it the Billy Big Bollocks was doomed from the start. 

As far as I can see, he never got it. He didn’t understand that the people who go in there don’t go in for the decor or the selection of beer or the customer service or the football etc. People go in there because its a nice place to spend a couple of hours in good company (for the most part). Simply put, if you make everyone who walks through the door feel uncomfortable they’ll find somewhere else to sit and drink beer. 

I wonder if there was a moment when it all dawned on him. In my head it goes like this, he's stood alone in an empty pub, opening and closing the till just to remember what it sounds like, wiping glasses that noone has drunk from, jumping from stool to stool pretending to be the regulars that used to sit in them. Before staring blankly into space, as a single solitary tear rolls down is cheek... He falls to his knees and screams "WHY? WHY MUST I BEHAVE LIKE SUCH A COLOSSAL KNOBHEAD?" 

In reality, he had run out of people to wind up and made the fatal mistake of getting on the wrong side of Mr. Fallon. And then, almost as quickly as he’d been installed as manager, he was just an umemployed gap-toothed homeless with one shirt and a stupid flatcap. 

 So I guess I'll see you around, Brains. It’s been emotional.